Easter Island statue's ear stolen on Easter Sunday

A Finnish tourist is accused of breaking off the ear from this moai, statue on Anakena beach, Easter Island. Photograph: EPA

A Finnish tourist was detained after allegedly stealing a piece of volcanic rock from one of the giant Moai statues on Easter Island during the Easter weekend.

Marko Kulju, 26, faces seven years in prison and a fine of 8.6m pesos (£9,550) if convicted of stealing pieces of the right earlobe from a Moai, one of numerous statues carved out of volcanic rock between 400 - 1,000 years ago to represent deceased ancestors.

A native Rapanui woman told authorities she witnessed the theft on Sunday at Anakena beach and saw Kulju fleeing from the scene with a piece of the statue in his hand. Police later identified him by the tattoos the woman saw on his body.

Kulju used his hands to tear off the earlobe, which fell to the ground and broke into pieces measuring 20 - 30cm each, Easter Island's police chief, Cristian Gonzalez, said. Kulju ran away with at least one of the pieces from the statute which is 4m (13ft) high, he said.

"Fortunately, this type of thing does not happen every day, but it does happen, and it is almost impossible to control because on Easter Island there are sites of great archaeological value everywhere and the park guards cannot prevent all such incidents," Easter Island government official Liliana Castro said.

Authorities are inspecting the statue to see if it can be repaired, Castro said. Damaging Moais is punishable under a law protecting national monuments.

While some of the island's 400 Moais are more than 20m (70ft) tall, most have an average height of 6m (20ft) and weigh about 20 metric tonnes.

The statues gaze out on the south Pacific, more than 3,700km (2,300 miles) west of Chile, which annexed Easter Island in the 19th century.

The Moais were nominated, but not chosen, as one of the new seven wonders of the world, selected by average citizens in a global poll conducted by a nonprofit organisation last year. Among the monuments edging them out of the competition were India's Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China and Rome's Colosseum.

About 3,800 people, the majority of them ethnic Rapanui, live on the Easter Island, which measures 180sq km (70sq m).